Solving Badugi

Ilkka Kokkarinen, who blogs over at The Fourth Checkraise was kind enough to share with me a draft paper on solving heads-up Badugi using Monte Carlo reinforcement learning.

Unfortunately, I think he made too many simplifying assumptions in setting up the problem. Equivalence classes of hands should distinguish K98 from K2A, and the play options should let you break the K rather than draw to it. (I'm more willing to admit that discarded cards and suits have a lesser impact on play and could be ignored in the interests of feasibility.) But I think these are not irreparable obstacles, although fixing them will increase the scope of the problem.